Common Benefits Software

Common Benefits from Common Census platform is a platform that allows for open enrollment management and year-round benefits administration for organizations of all size.

After initial setup, where company structure, benefits and employee eligibility are preloaded into the system, human resources (HR) departments can add new hires, edit employees and enable self-service so that employees can view benefits information and request any changes.

The solution offers a portfolio of voluntary and ancillary products, along with video coaches and documents to help employees make more informed benefits decisions. Necessary documents, such as employee statements, payroll deduction confirmations and benefit statements, are also built into the system.

Common Benefits also features built-in reports, as well as functionality for custom exports, which users can automate or run manually to send data to insurance carriers and payroll vendors. It also includes a HIPAA-compliant messaging system, and a multilingual navigation interface to accommodate a diverse workforce. This product is available for cloud-based or on-premise deployment.

This gives our enrollment firm a cost effective way to be very responsive and flexible for clients.

Pros

Common Benefits allows us to build our own cases, on our own schedule, at a very reasonable price. Because of their relationships with nearly all major voluntary benefit carriers, we're able pull a wide variety of core and VB products onto one platform, which is a real pain point with other products that are often unable to handle one or the other. The system is very flexible and allows for a variety of solutions to typical enrollment and reporting challenges. This flexibility also means that the learning curve can be steep, but we have felt very well supported by the company's staff. They are quick to respond and are very solution oriented. With Common Benefits we can usually set up a new case for enrollment in less than two weeks, at minimal cost (sometimes free). Outsourcing the same case to another vendor would typically take at least six weeks and cost us thousands of dollars or, depending on the carriers, be free but take more like 8-12 weeks.

Cons

Some of the features that seem like they could be 'built in' require custom scripting, specifically some of the rating and enrollment rules for certain benefits. A couple very common reporting challenges are not handled well, specifically reporting on changes to data within the system. With that said, the staff is more than helpful with providing ready-to-use solutions to these and other issues. None of this requires us to have programming knowledge or to hire someone specifically to do it.

August 2016

John from National Benefits Group of America, Inc.

Company Size: 11-50 employees

Review Source: Capterra

Ease-of-use

4 of 5

Value for money

5 of 5

Customer support

5 of 5

Functionality

4 of 5

August 2016

Great company, great platform

My company has been using and providing our clients with the Common Census enrollment/ben admin platform for over a decade. During that time we have consistently been impressed with the team from Westbrook, Maine, as well as their flexible system. Common Census allows producers and employers the ability to manage annual and ongoing enrollment, life event processing, and EDI file feeds via a flexible suite of tools that can accommodate nearly any benefit configuration.

Perhaps not as "flashy" as other platforms. This is not a true negative, in my opinion, as many other platforms offer lots of bells and whistles that are seldom utilized by HR or employees, and can detract from the true objective, which is selecting benefits. Some may lament the lack of flashier decision support tools, but I don't.

Response from Common Census of Common Census

Replied August 2016

John,
We greatly appreciate the feedback on our platform and your loyalty as a customer over the years. We strive to improve our features based on all the feedback we receive. We are also please to announce that in this upcoming Q4 of 2016, we will be releasing a updated version of our employee self-service site which will be mobile responsive.

January 2018

Amanda from NBGA

Review Source: Capterra

Ease-of-use

5 of 5

Value for money

5 of 5

Customer support

5 of 5

Functionality

4 of 5

January 2018

Excellent customer service on a user friendly platform!

I have worked with Common Census for 10+ years, and have found that while there are some areas that other software systems may be more advanced or flashier, that Common Census makes up for in quality, and support. I would much rather use a software that allows for ease of use on all parties involved thus allowing the most effective enrollment, than a platform that offers every tip, trick, and option making setups more complicated, confusing, and at times taking away from the true value of an enrollment. I believe Quality over quantity goes a long way, and Common Census offers the quality!

Pros

The software is incredibly user-friendly on both the system setup and end-user side. The attentive customer support provided is above all others in the industry that I’ve experienced!

Cons

In some areas, customization of certain tools, features, and displays are not available to meet specific needs. However, I find that actually makes the overall setup, deployment, and wrap up of an enrollment more efficient and effective. There is something to be said about “Less is More”.

December 2016

Archie from Total Benefit Solutions

Company Size: 11-50 employees

Review Source: Capterra

Ease-of-use

5 of 5

Value for money

4 of 5

Customer support

5 of 5

Functionality

4 of 5

December 2016

Great Enrollment Software

Common Census is a great technology partner who's product fills our needs and who's customer service is ready when needed. The features of their platform lead us to use them on many of our cases!

Pros

Flexibility, options and customer service.

Cons

Time needed to produce EDI files.

January 2017

CARLA from TOTAL BENEFIT SOLUTIONS

Review Source: Capterra

Ease-of-use

4 of 5

Value for money

5 of 5

Customer support

5 of 5

Functionality

3 of 5

January 2017

Great company, Great product, Great people

Love working with the system and our support and all the other staff members.
My only complaint is the reporting system. It needs more pre-built global reports and a better structure for building your own in the system. Not enough explanation of which report works best for what outcome.

January 2018

Anonymous

Verified Reviewer

Review Source: Capterra

Ease-of-use

4 of 5

Value for money

5 of 5

Customer support

4 of 5

Functionality

4 of 5

January 2018

Common Census has been a great enrollment partner with our mutual clients.

Successful participation results with this Common Census enrollment technology support.

Pros

The Guardian benefit coach is a valuable tool with both one on one enrollment and self serve clients.

Cons

One drawback was the need to customize our permanent life offering which created a system incompatibility on one of the many cases written over the last six months.

March 2017

Shawn from ERG

Review Source: Capterra

Ease-of-use

5 of 5

Value for money

5 of 5

Customer support

5 of 5

Functionality

4 of 5

March 2017

Simple to use and easy to deploy

I have had a 15 year relationship with Common Census and have always found the system simple to use and extremely easy to deploy.

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